To expand on what was previously mentioned.
Im just going to take a stab at this, but if VSC is similar to other anti-skidding systems found on other cars this should be informative.
VSC is used to control understeer and oversteer, which is by definition the car skidding. Understeer as you know is when the car is losing traction up front, most commonly associated with front wheel drive cars. While rearwheel drive cars have the ability to power oversteer.Understeer is easier to control IMO, and is safer. Some reason for losing traction are as follows, power to overwhelm the tire's traction causing it to slip since there is a thing called a traction circle, or transfering weight off from the tires in question..less weight = less traction. It controls it by applying brakes to individual wheels inorder to manipulate load and correct the error. Understeering can be solved by application of brakes because it throws the load up front, more load, more traction. If your over anxious and powering through that hairpin turn, your gonna power oversteer the car, so VSC i would imagine limits your throttle and cuts back so you dont spin the rubber and lose traction. Basically it manipulates load transfers.
LSD - Limited slip differentials are used instead of open differentials for performance reasons. When you turn, the inside wheel has little weight on it as the load transfers to the outside wheels. With an open differential, the power will go to the wheel with the least resistance (the inside wheel), and it will just spin, what do you get? nothing. Ever notice those cars that do burnouts at a track to warm up their tires, and somtimes only ONE WHEEL SPINS, thats an open differntial. Limit-slip allows the car to sense which wheel is slipping and transfer power to the wheel (in increments) to the wheel with the resistance..i guess you can say "from the wheels that slip to the wheels that grip".
Launches, cornering will be improved with the use of an LSD.
Bad weather/ sloppy driving will be assisted bt the VSC however, i do feel that it takes a lot out of the actual "driver driving the car"
If any portion of my reply is erroneous please let me know.
[ July 24, 2001: Message edited by: Sublime00 ]
